Why people ask Sts Cyrus and John
Healing
Cyrus was a doctor and John a soldier, martyred together in AD 311, and from AD 412 their shrine near Alexandria was a place where the sick were healed.
Holy Wonderworkers and Unmercenaries Cyrus and John, Orthodox Church in America; Translation of the Relics of the Unmercenaries Cyrus and John, Orthodox Church in America
When it is said
The Church sings it on their feast, 31 January, and again on 28 June, when it remembers the moving of their relics.
Anyone may say it at home to ask the prayers of the two saints for someone who is ill.
Where it comes from
No author known
A doctor and a soldier
Cyrus was a Christian doctor in Alexandria who treated the sick without charge. When the emperor Diocletian persecuted the Christians, Cyrus went into Arabia and became a monk. In Jerusalem a soldier from Edessa named John heard of him and searched for him in Alexandria and then in Arabia. Once John found Cyrus, he stayed with him as his follower.
Martyrs together
The two went to a prison to give courage to a Christian woman, Athanasia, and her three young daughters, who faced torture for their faith. The ruler of the city arrested Cyrus and John and had them tortured in front of the women. Athanasia and her daughters still confessed Christ and were beheaded, and Cyrus and John were put to death in the same place.
What the words mean
What is the unseen surgery?
The hymn plays on their work as doctors. A surgeon cuts to heal the body, and in this hymn Cyrus and John cut away the passions of the soul with a surgery no one can see. In his life, too, Cyrus healed people’s spiritual weakness as well as their bodies.
Menaion, 31 January, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; Sts Cyrus and John, Orthodox Church in America
In Greek
Ἐκ τῆς θείας χάριτος, τὴν δωρεὰν τῶν θαυμάτων, εἰληφότες Ἅγιοι,
θαυματουργεῖτε ἀπαύστως,
ἅπαντα ἡμῶν τὰ πάθη, τῇ χειρουργίᾳ, τέμνοντες τῇ ἀοράτῳ,
Κῦρε θεόφρον, σὺν τῷ θείῳ Ἰωάννῃ·
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